It’s getting cold, reduce heating costs

It is getting cold out now. I finally turned my heat on my house yesterday. I was trying to wait as long as possible to turn the heat on since natural gas can be very expensive. I let my house get down to 60 degrees before I finally caved and turned it on. Since the cooler I keep my house the more money I save, I set my heat to 67 degrees.
One way to save more money is to turn down the heat when you sleep. I set my heat to 60 when I go to bed till I get back from class the next day. Also you should make sure your furnace filter is clean since if it is dirty, it will have to run longer to heat the house.


Since I live in an older house a lot of my windows are single pane. Single pane windows do not insulate as well. Also since they are older windows they do not seal very well. I can feel gusts of wind through the windows. A really important thing I do is I buy plastic window covers from the hardware store. This adds a space of dead air between the room in your house and the window. Essentially this gives you a second pane on your window. It also catches drafts from leaky windows.


I am now living in a house for my third year. I lived in the dorms only my freshman year. Taking these steps makes a real difference. Doing these steps can make a $400 heating bill be $150. I have had those expensive bills and I do everything I can to avoid them.
If you live in an apartment you might not even have to turn your heat on. I have friends that did not have to turn on their heat at all since they had apartments on top, bottom, left, and right of their apartment. Their apartment was heated by the surrounding apartments.